Hmmm, well, to be honest, I feel precisely the opposite of the way you do. I think racing takes the FUN out of things.. Like when in college I blew off the college soccer team, cuz it's just so much more fun to play intramurals without all the stress and pressure and DULL training..

As for what makes bashing so much fun, this will sound totally crazy and odd.., but for me it's like a Zen thing - being totally focussed and hitting a ramp JUST RIGHT, getting the truck to fly just right, land etc.. There's the sound of WOT before the ramp, the smack when it hits it, the revving down in the air, or maybe revving to correct, and the thump of the landing. I love it.. I always really enjoyed just passing a football back and forth on a nice day for kind of the same reason(if I only had a Euro for every hour I spent doing that as a student..) I'd rather do that at the beach than be on some field running laps in circles or windsprints with the team..

I was big into skating as a teenager too, and for me bashing is a kind of subsitute. Skating is about doing your own thing, finding your own style, always trying to go faster, higher, etc.. I also like the aggrssion of it. But when you crash skating, it's your body that takes the hit(25 years of soccer and five or so of skating took their toll - gonna need surgery on both knees here in the next couple of years I think...) With RC MT bashing, it's your wallet that takes the hit..

Anyway, that's probably a totally weird answer, but that's how I see it. I'd like to try racing some day, and I AM rather, um.., EXTREMELY competitive, but first of all, and this is another obvious factor, it's just not possible where I live. Secondly, it's REALLY expensive, isn't it? And thirdly, I would be worried that it would be too serious and take the fun out of it - at least the kind of fun I'm after.

So no offense, but - I hate cliches - whatever floats your boat, different strokes for different folks, to each his own, and all that..

One last thing about bashing. When jumping, as with skating, snowboarding, motorcross jumping, etc..., there's always MORE air.. You can alway try to go higher..................